Cass Fashion Show 2018 News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

The Cass Salon 2018 promises a “beautifully wrong, sublimely scandalous" live interactive installation of new fashion talent.

SALON: The Cass Graduation Fashion Show 2018

The Cass Graduate Fashion Show 2018 will see the traditional runway replaced with an interactive Salon style showcase with performances at 2pm and 6pm on 7 June.

Described by organisers as "beautifully wrong and sublimely scandalous" the Salon will rip up the catwalk in favour of an experiential event where the audience and the design showpieces by Fashion BA (Hons) students will mingle together, placing interaction and involvement at the heart of the show.

Are you attracted to the scandalous and the outrageous in fashion, music, literature, the arts, or politics? Then this show will delight. Stripping away the provocative elements of fashion, the question these young designers will answer is: is there a beautiful design beyond the sensation? As proof of their craftsmanship, the students will invite the audience at the Cass Fashion Salon to engage directly and even touch the garments on show. It is easy to be outrageous but to be outrageous and create requires fine-tuned skill and craftsmanship.

The show will include garments created as a result of various live project briefs the Fashion BA students enjoyed this year, presented by designers who are highly skilled in their craft, from Burberry to Kenzo. Students have worked with industry professionals and creative superstars such as Miss Polly Rae, famed for bringing burlesque to London’s West End in the critically acclaimed The Hurly Burly Show with William Baker (Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Rihanna) and The Soho Burlesque Club in London’s Legendary Hippodrome. Tailoring methods, corsetry structures, embroidery techniques and traditional skills have been the foundations to underscore contemporary design with craft. Students looked at references such as Sir Tom Baker for an up-to-date take and feel on the Saville Row suit or Mr Pearl for corsetry. Beyond the live projects there were many opportunities to get out and experience the broader context of fashion industries from makers to models, catwalk to high street.

Talking about the show, Marianne Forrest Head of 3D Design at the School said “Talent is longevity and the mix of raw talent with the careful honing of making skills enables our graduates to offer unique and special skills to the industry, whether as designer/makers or as an essential team member of a grand fashion house. Think of a bespoke tailored suit from Saville Row. Underneath the perfect exterior, there are numerous canvases and interlinings, stitch types and structures, mostly hand created to produce the final perfect and effortless look of the tailored suit. Think corsetry and the types and methods used in the boning to create the scaffolding of the corset. Then add outrage, new thinking, creative extravagance and experience these in the Cass Fashion Salon 2018.”

The Fashion Salon events, which form part of The Cass Summer Show season, are free to attend but must be booked in advance.